Something Blue
by gray-streaks
Summary: It's five years after the Giant War and Percy has a question.


A/N: So I know a lot of people are waiting for a PMO update, but the opening scene is... having issues. As in I've started and restarted it about 3 millions times at this point. I sat down to try again yesterday and... this happened instead.

XxXx

Percy jerks awake when the alarm goes off and for a long moment he just stares at the ceiling of cabin three. His heart pounds in his chest.

_Oh gods, what if she says no? _The gods don't reply, but then he wasn't really expecting them to; it's a dumb question. He hopes.

Finally he grins and rolls out of bed. Quickly he makes sure the little box is still where he'd hidden it the night before (it is) and then walks across the width of the cabin to the alarm. He hits the button and the cabin goes silent. When Percy last saw Poseidon about a month or so ago the god had let slip that there's a little girl in Orlando, but, for the moment, Percy still has the cabin to himself and there's no sister to get angry at him for waking her up at dawn.

_On the other hand_, he thinks as he stands there with his heart threatening to leap out of his chest from a combination of nerves and excitement, _I could probably use the distraction._ He clenches his hands to stop their shaking, and ducks into the tiny bathroom.

For the most part, Percy's showers tend to take only a few minutes, lasting just long enough for him to jump in, will himself wet, soap and shampoo mostly because there's no point if he doesn't, and then he dries himself off the quick way before hopping back out; some days he in and out before the water makes it past lukewarm.

Today, Percy takes his time and spends what feels like forever on his hair before he uses the new body wash Annabeth got him last week even though the old bottle isn't quite empty yet. The water helps calm his nerves and his heartbeat is back to normal by time he reaches down to turn the water off. He cracks the door open to help with the steam on the mirror and quickly uses the towel before he wraps it around his waist.

After brushing his teeth and shaving as quickly as he dares, Percy goes into the main part of the cabin and double checks that the little box is still in its spot. Yup.

Part of him thinks that he should wear something fancy, dress pants and a nice shirt at least, but it's going to be a busy day so he keeps it simple: jeans and a camp shirt that are both new enough to have not been in a monster fight, his favorite pair of sneakers, and, as always, his leather necklace with its ten clay beads. He tucks Riptide and the box into his pockets.

He ducks back into the bathroom, tries to make his hair behave, and fails.

Back in the main room, he stands just inside the door and pauses, running through a mental checklist of people he needed permission from and things he needed to do first. He checks everything off and then runs through it again just to be sure. Finally, he takes a deep breath and leaves the cabin.

He finds Annabeth at table six in the pavilion, right where he expected her to be. She's surrounded by folders and blueprints. The laptop that once survived Tartarus is in off to one side, a plate of toast crumbs and an abandoned cup of coffee on the other. Her hairs in a messy bun and, like him, she's wearing the camp 'uniform' of jeans, orange tee-shirt, clay beads, and sneakers. Percy stops by one of the pillars and just watches her while she chews on the end of her pen and scans a blueprint looking for mistakes. They've been practically living together since high school, but somehow he never gets tired of looking at her.

"Are you just going to stand there, Seaweed Brain?" Annabeth asks dropping the blueprint she was looking at and reaching for a different one. She doesn't even look over at him.

Percy grins, "Well I was hoping you'd take a walk with me."

"This is important."

"Of course it is, you're making sure you didn't draw the staircase crooked again, but come on I want to show you something."

"We're at camp; we know every blade of grass. There isn't anything to _look at_ and this-"

"-is our house," he finishes for her with another grin, "and you've been over it a million times, it's perfect."

"One more won't hurt," she mutters, frowning at their second floor.

"This is more important."

"More important than our future?"

He doesn't answer right away, he _can't _answer, and she looks up. Wordlessly, he arches his eyebrows.

She hesitates and then glances back at the table with a sigh, reaching out to rearrange her papers so that they won't blow away on her. "Five minutes," she says standing.

"Absolutely," he agrees and pulls her in for a kiss the instant she's in range. He keeps it short and their fingers interlace as he leads her out of the pavilion and towards a well-worn path that hadn't existed five years ago. Hands swinging between them, they pass through a little grove of trees and leave what is still widely considered to be Camp Half-Blood's borders.

The temples are going up off to the left. Zeus's is finished, while Hera's is only missing its statue. Poseidon's is little more than a marble floor and some half completed columns surrounding by blocks of marble that are still waiting to be lifted into position, but it's going to be fantastic. The rest exist only in Annabeth's files and as marked out squares on the ground, but they're bound to be perfect.

The field on the left is full of tarp covered supplies, stacks of wood, boxes of shingles and nails and screws, buckets of tar, rolls of that paper they put on the outside of half finished buildings, a lot more marble, and enough tools to build a town.

Of the town itself, there's not much to see. There's the large government style building that they only use when the constant negotiations and renegotiations with Camp Jupiter happen on this side of the country; it was the first thing to go up. The Stoll's run the tiny post office that now handles the mail for the entire camp. There's a little half-finished apartment building where the Stoll brothers, Clarisse and Chris, and a few others already have claims. The rest is mostly just squares on the ground, the grocery store, a few houses, and even a little hotel so that mortal family members can visit. Once, during a planning session that was so early they didn't even have the extra land yet, Jason had called the place "Grecopolis" as joke and somehow it'd stuck.

Annabeth laughs as Percy leads her past it all, "I designed this, I know it better than you do."

Percy just grins at her and keeps walking.

There's one square on the ground that's away from the main group, as close to the sea as it can be without being in the sand. It's more substantial than all the others, a proper foundation made of concrete and brick and Percy doesn't really know what else. They're supposed to start framing the house today. Percy leads Annabeth right out onto the foundation, straight to the center of the slab of concrete.

"What…" she starts looking around a little bewildered.

"Where are we?" he asks softly, suddenly too nervous to feel smug at the fact that she suspects nothing. And why should she? Between Hera and Athena and the fact they've never felt the need for a fancy piece of paper to prove they love each other, the subject had never really come up, but the more Grecopolis started to become a reality and the closer this house came to being more than a dream, the more Percy felt that they were missing a step.

Annabeth pauses and eyes the foundation with a critical eye for a moment. "The corner of the living room," she says finally, startling a laugh out of him, "maybe in the wall." Her eyes are shining a little, "Our house, our future, the beginning of our happily ever after."

He doesn't have a speech planned, spontaneity has always seemed to work best for them, and suddenly he knows what to say. It's probably horrendously cheesy, but he doesn't care. Percy slips his hand into his pocket and closes his fingers around the little box.

"Here's the thing about happy endings," he says locking eyes with Annabeth to keep her attention while he slides the box from his pocket and pulls it open. Her eyes widen slightly when he grabs her hand and he slowly drops to one knee and holds the ring up where she can see it before continuing, "they usually happen after a wedding."

"Sapphires," Annabeth murmurs laughing a little and wiping at the tears that are starting to slide down her cheeks, "of course. But-"

"I talked to Hera, and your mom, and your dad, and _my_ dad, and Chiron, and Malcolm… just covering all my bases," he adds when he realizes she's staring. "But the point is I love you, I think I always have, and… if you don't want to get married cool, whatever, it doesn't change that, but I really don't want to mess this up. And I get it, we're busy, you have a city to build and if I'm not in New Rome talking to the senate, I'm listening to Jason to the same thing with the counselors here; we can go to the court house and have lunch at Olive Garden, I don't care, but… " He pauses long enough to take a deep breath, "Will you marry me? …please?"

For a moment, she just stares at him and says nothing, but then her lips twitch. _"Please?"_ she manages to get out as she breaks into a fit of giggles and then, just as suddenly she stops. "We're going to have to ask Chiron if we can do it here, and the temples need to be finished in case the gods show up, and the hotel so our parents have a place to sleep, and the house of course, and- mmph. Time," she finishes with a gasp when Percy breaks the surprise kiss, "I need time."

He laughs while he slides the ring on to her finger. "As much as you want."

"Time… and an assistant."


End file.
